100 words on… Jungleland by Christopher S. Stewart

Confession: I love reading adventure stories. I love traveling to exotic locations through the pages of a book (and wouldn’t mind going to a few of them in real life!!). Lost in Shangri-Lawas one of my very favourite books of 2011, and I can’t wait for you all to readFrozen in Time, the newest book by Mitchell Zuckoff, coming this summer.

But, I’m getting away from my point here.

The point is that I loved traveling deep into the jungle with Christopher S. Stewart inJungleland.

It’s hard to believe sometimes that there are places on this planet that we have yet to explore, but Stewart finds one in his quest in Jungleland. Here, he travels to Honduras in search of the fabled White City, a mythical city made entirely of gold. Sounds like the plot of an Indiana Jones movie, right? Well, this story is entirely true and chronicles both Stewart’s adventure and an adventure that happened 70 years ago when a future WWII spy attempted to find the same lost city.

Stewart is a totally relate-able hero. He’s a young dad who has never done anything like this before, yet his obsession with the city drags him into an incredibly dangerous journey, where he encounters deadly snakes, criminals, illness, and all the terrors the jungle can throw at him. I still can’t believe he went through all this.

Is it worth the risk? I’m not going to spoil the ending, I’m just going to recommend you read it. It’s the perfect book for anyone that loves history, adventure, and details about all the ways the jungle can kill you. (Spiders! Malaria! Snake bites that cause your blood to come out of your eyes!)